On Thursday, it was announced that the new European Championship to be staged this season will undertake a format change.
Instead of the intended flat draw consisting of 128 players at the venue in Romania, there will now be only 32 players travelling to the country which is set to host a ranking event for the first time.
In a statement World Snooker said: “Qualifying rounds will be staged at the Guild Hall in Preston from September 26 to 28, with all players needing to win two matches to make it to Bucharest.”
“The entry deadline for players will be August 24 and the seeding cut off point will now be after the Paul Hunter Classic in August.”
There’s no mention of the format for the tournament itself, although it was previously widely speculated that it would follow the new trend of snooker events and be mostly best of seven frames.
However, that now seems questionable considering the main event runs for seven days from October 3 to 9.
What is possible is that every match will now be shown live on a single table set-up, or perhaps fans will alternatively be rewarded with slightly longer encounters throughout the five rounds.
As ever, we wait patiently to find out.
